Question for Scot

Hey, Scot, many years ago when you did your newsletter, you did a series where you compared the Apple OS to Windows. I don't remember if you also compared Linux. Eventually you came to the conclusion that you favored Apple. Many years later, do you still favor Apple over Windows?

You don't need to answer this if you don't want to, thanks,
Acadia

The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

Cool, I apologize, and with your information it makes sense. After all, I cannot name another website that allows so many people, OS religious wise, to speak so openly no matter WHAT they use, Linux, Windows, or Apple.

Acadia

The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

Thanks everyone for all replies. Despite purchasing three books to help me switch from Windows to Apple I will probably stay with Windows.
But will wait to purchase a new system for a while hoping MS gets its monthly updating worked out.
Acadia

The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

I haven't used Apple anything since 1989! Since Windows 7 will be the last version of Windows I run, I started looking around for alternatives. Like you, I looked at Apple but I am too old and much too frugal to consider buying Apple hardware.

I'm pretty happy with my newest android tablet. 95% of what I do is surf and once I pull the Windows computers off the internet (but keep them so I can play the games that are on them), I think it will be okay. My newest tablet comes with some Office apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and One Note. Since my husband still needs Word and Excel, we should be okay using the tablet.

Boy, can I ever relate to that. While testing Linux many years ago I was amused by the Linux fanboys who were complaining about all of the monthly Microsoft Windows updates. Well, Linux constantly had many, many more updates than Windows, dozens more. Maybe things have changed since back then, I don't know, but I simply want things to work. As I too get older I live more and more by the motto: Keep It Simple Stupid; I only wish I knew more about the iMacs, are they simpler than Windows systems.
Acadia

Edited by Acadia, 05 December 2017 - 11:32 AM.

The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

I suspect they are. I have a girlfriend who always used Windows computers. She got tired of the updates so she bought an iPhone (her first smartphone) and got an iMac. (She is 69 but has 2 daughters who can help lead her through the issues). The only thing she had a question about was getting the printer to work. Fortunately, she lives close to an Apple store so she signed up for lessons and goes there to ask questions.

The closest Apple store to us is at least an hour away if the traffic is good but longer this time of year so it isn't practical for me.

Not to get into a fanboi debate or anything but today you can choose a mainstream distro like Linux Mint 18 and set the update policy to be very conservative or very aggressive depending on your experience as a user. Updates don't take much time and if you go with "Just keep my computer safe" you'll have a pretty stable situation.
Of course if you want "death by update" I would recommend Debian Sid. Even that is a pretty stable system. Linux has come a long way and my Linux Mint 18 system just works - for me and the grandkids when they come over.

I think only about one other person here besides me uses OpenSUSE, but for over 12 years it has "just worked" for me. YMMV, and I suspect it depends largely on what exactly you need to do, but it's been trouble-free for me with the exception of my last install when I foolishly overlooked the file system it defaulted to. That can be remedied next time without issue, however. I've never had a problem with security updates, which install silently and seamlessly.

I think only about one other person here besides me uses OpenSUSE, but for over 12 years it has "just worked" for me.

I still dabble in openSUSE. I've been testing Leap on different hardware and I like the fact that it's VNC server works better than Ubuntu. Unity was a pain to get a desktop in VNC. With GNOME installed in Ubuntu it's better now.

Most of my Linux instances I run at work are in virtual machines in VMware vSphere. I have a few Raspberry Pi systems doing low-level service duty: DHCP, DNS, WiFi bridge, router.

'freedom...is actually the reason that men live together in political organisations at all. Without it, political life as such would be meaningless. The raison d'Être of politics is freedom, and its field of experience is action'.
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Hey, Scot, many years ago when you did your newsletter, you did a series where you compared the Apple OS to Windows. I don't remember if you also compared Linux. Eventually you came to the conclusion that you favored Apple. Many years later, do you still favor Apple over Windows?

You don't need to answer this if you don't want to, thanks,
Acadia

I use both Windows and the Mac every day. I went back to Windows when I became a heavy Dragon user. It works much better under Windows. But I never stopped loving the Mac. I've come to grudgingly like Windows 10 quite a bit. Microsoft does a lot of things right in this OS.

I use SugarSync to sync the desktop and a few other folders between my Dell XPS 9550 and my 2017 MacBook Pro Retina. So I'm always looking at the same set of files no matter what machine I open. I have a virtual machine of Windows 10 on my Mac using Parallels. Because of the way you can configure the Mac in your Windows virtual machine to share folders in Parallels, effectively I'm looking at the Mac desktop under Windows in terms of the files in folders it contains. That means that all three daily driver operating system installations see the same data at all times.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. ~C. S. Lewis